Actor Colin Egglesfield reads to toddlers while promoting his line of children's clothing

Actor Colin Egglesfield knows how to work a room – especially when it’s filled with kids. On a recent outing at the Roscoe Village children’s boutique “Little Threads,” the 41-year-old actor/entrepreneur was reading to toddlers while promoting his line of children’s clothes, Shout Out!

“The reason I love kids so much is because they’re so honest, so you know right away if they like you or they don’t,” said Egglesfield, whose acting credits include the romantic comedy, “Something Borrowed,” the Lifetime series, “The Client List,” and the daytime drama, “All My Children.”

Egglesfield spent much of his childhood in Crete, Illinois, and played football as a student at Marion Catholic high school. But while he lives and works in Los Angeles, he said he looks forward to coming home to Chicago several times a year.

“As a kid, I was always very shy growing up — I wasn’t very good at articulating my thoughts or my feelings. Now that I’m older, I found acting to do that. So it’s been an amazing way to sort of express who I am.”

Egglesfield said he wanted to create shirts that were unique by allowing kids to create their own messages with Velcro letters, symbols and numbers.

“I think it’s incredibly important for kids to be able to express who they are and feel like they can be themselves without being persecuted for it or bullied for it,” he said. “So any way we can give a kid a voice and give them the encouragement and self-empowerment to be who they are, that’s ideally what we’re trying to do.”